Chocolate Banana Bread

Finally! It happened. I am launching my newly redesigned blog! Thank you very much for all your encouraging comments and emails I’ve been receiving along the way. I haven’t blogged in a while and it feels great to be finally back in the blogosphere.

To mark this occasion, I decided to bake something simple, yet luscious and super delicious. I had some ripe bananas screaming for attention and I also had a bag of chocolate chips I’d been desperately trying to hide away from my chocolate-lover 5-year-old who finds chocolate no matter where I put it. So naturally, the choice fell on chocolate banana bread. Out of a dozen recipes for the bread I found online and in books and magazines I have, one stood out for me. It was the recipe by Stephanie Jarowski, the owner of Joy of Baking, a wonderful baking website with tons of great recipes.

I adapted Stephanie’s recipe to my taste. The original recipe called for white chocolate chips in the batter, but I used dark chocolate chips instead. Also, I used raw walnuts instead of roasted and I chose not to top the bread with brown sugar before it went in the oven. The bread turned out amazingly delicious! So tender and moist!

If you have ripe bananas at home and would love to bake this bread but have no time at the moment, no worries, save your bananas for later use. Here’s what Stephanie suggests, “Instead of throwing them away simply slip them into a plastic bag and place them into the freezer until you have enough for baking. You can also peel and mash them, stir in 1 teaspoon lemon juice for each banana, and freeze in an airtight container or bag. They will keep about six months in the freezer.” Thank you, Stephanie, for the delicious recipe and the great advice!

Make this bread, guys. You will love it, love it, just love it again and again!

Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Butter and flour (or spray with a non-stick vegetable spray) the bottom and sides of a 9-by-5-by-3 inch (23-by-13-by-8 cm) loaf pan. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla. With a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon, lightly fold the wet ingredients (banana mixture) into the dry ingredients (flour mixture) until just combined and the batter is thick and chunky. Fold in the nuts and chocolate chips.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Bake on the middle rack of the oven until the bread has risen and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55-65 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool, then remove the bread from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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70 Comments

Gorgeous bread! Can I have a slice please? You know, I associate different images with different food bloggers. I’d come to you blog first a long, long time ago and seen the zebra cake. So now in my mind you’re the zebra cake blogger. Heheh Just thought I’d share this.

Feridecim..Congratulations..Blog Looks AWESOMEEEEEE!! I love it! One thing though on my internet page the page does not fully show 3 columns. The 3rd column is on the bottom of the page. Just wanted to bring this to your attention!! Looking forward to sharing wonderful recipes and new posts…Aysegul

Shaheen: Welcome to my new blog. Glad you like it. I like your association re zebra cake:)

Aysegul: Thank you dear. I am glad you like the new design. Thank you for bringing the issue to my attention. You are right, looks like we do have issues viewing the blog on Explorer. It works fine on Netscape and Mozilla but not on Explorer. Trying to fix it. Cok tesekkurler!

Aynur: Thank you! Glad you like it. And I am glad to have such a supportive friend:)

O Farida, your new look is so beautiful. Good job. Maybe thats why the mails were bouncing since you were switching websites. Anyway my mail must have gone to you now since it didnt bounce back today. Keep up the good work. You make a lot of people very happy & that is such a great skill & blessing.

The new site is beautiful! I hope it turns out as succesful as the old one. Now that I think about it, I’m SURE it will be. Kaloriziko, as we say in Greece. (That means “may it have the luckiest of fates”).

Larissa: welcome to my blog! How great you got to see Turkiye. I am sure you have great memories about the food there. Azerbaijani and Turkish foods have a lot in common, yet are distinctive in their own way.

In the meantime, here are four of my favorite Turkish food blogs. The first three are in English, the fourth one in Turkish in case you picked up the language there. You’ll love them!

Thanks for stopping by my blog as it reminded me that I must stop by to say hello and check out what’s cooking on your end!! LOVEEEEE the new blog… Looks great… I’m updating you on my blogroll right after this…. Take care, Leesa

Merhaba abla! Just wanna tell you that I have been baking this recipe for at least 5 times ever since you posted! I love the aroma that fills my home whenever it is baking in the oven. Thanks for sharing!

I love your website and your blog! How fantastic. I lived in Salyan for 2 years with an Azerbaijani family and fell in love with so many recipes! The problem is that I don’t know how to prepare them. Every spring (around Novruz) my host mother made what I interpreted to be a spring paxlava (baklava). It was yellow and I think it had coconut and was delicious!! Does this sound familiar to you? If so, are you able to send me the recipe or post it on your blog?

Also – I assume that you make Levengi the same regardless of using Toyug or Balig – is that correct?

bought this particular as a gift by friends that frequented all of us for that summer and knew our fruit juice. The aged juice extractor was really upon it’s last thighs, very cumbersome and also to be truthful it really would be a after it. This particular all of us didn’t use it anyplace close to much as we might have loved to do. That one is indeed a

I just make this in the weekend and it tastes delicious! It has the flavor of a brownie with bananas, and the texture was a little similar too.
Thank you for the great recipe, next time I’ll add half mini-kisses with almond, I’m sure it will turn out great.

Baking this wonderful bread right now, the smell is irresistable!!!! I am already afraid that it will wake up my 4year old, who has been preparing his sweet tooth fot this delight already a couple of days ago.
Thanks Feride!!! Warmest hugs from me and my little one to you!!!